Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate voted by a wide margin to proceed to Leader Reid's Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act. Everyone in this Chamber claims to support both small businesses and tax relief, and Republicans know the best way to do that is to stop the $4.5 trillion tax hike that looms over the economy, and it is crippling job creators. Fortunately, there is an easy way to solve the problem: Vote on and pass amendment No. 2491, introduced by Senators Hatch and McConnell and cosponsored by myself and several colleagues. The amendment is simple. It prevents the looming expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief for 1 year, and lays out specific conditions for progrowth tax reform in the coming months. It is similar to the approach the House will take later this month. In other words, the Hatch-McConnell amendment stops income tax rates from rising. It stops capital gains and dividends rates from rising. It stops the job-killing death tax from rising and the related exemption from falling. And it prevents the alternative minimum tax from engulfing millions more middle-income Americans. It is an amendment that would protect our economy more than any debt- financed stimulus bill or other kind of short-term tax credit that the Obama administration could dream up. It is an amendment that, given the history of bipartisan support for tax relief in this Chamber, should pass the Chamber today. To be clear, stopping these tax hikes for 1 year is not a perfect solution. My preference is to continue the current rates as we move toward comprehensive tax reform for both individuals and corporations. But let's be clear about what the other options are. First, we could let the top two marginal tax brackets increase from 33 and 35 percent to 36 and 39.6 percent respectively. That is what President Obama and Leader Reid wish to do. That strategy means that almost 1 million business owners will be hit with a massive tax increase on New Year's Day. And that is according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. That strategy means 53 percent of business income will be subjected to a tax hike in order to fund the historic levels of spending from the current administration. The strategy guarantees more jobs will be lost, that unemployment will stay high, and that economic growth will remain sub par. Let me repeat that. Over half--53 percent--of all business income would be subjected to this tax increase. If we do nothing, the current code expires and Americans will see over $4.5 trillion taken from the private sector over the next decade. This will help push us into a recession next year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. For any Member of this Chamber who cares about job creation and economic recovery, these two options should be unacceptable. They certainly were for President Obama in 2010. Less than 2 years ago, when President Obama signed legislation into law preventing taxes from going up on any American, he noted that tax hikes, and I am quoting here, ``would have been a blow to our economy just as we are climbing out of a devastating recession.'' Evidently, 40 Senate Democrats agreed with the President since they too voted to stop taxes from increasing in 2010. What is the difference now? Our economy is in worse shape, growing now at less than 2 percent. At that time it was 3 percent. So there is even more reason not to raise taxes now than there was in 2010 when the President thought it was a bad idea. I want to echo the sentiments of Senator McConnell this morning. Even though the President's plan is bad for the economy, we should vote on it and we should vote on the Hatch amendment today. Let's show the American people where we stand. A unanimous consent agreement to do just that was blocked this morning by the majority leader even though President Obama said the following 2 days ago: So my message to Congress is this: Pass a bill. I will sign it tomorrow. Pass it next week; I'll sign it next week. Pass it next--well, you get the idea. We should follow President Obama's suggestion. We should vote on these proposals. Let's vote on his proposal. Let's vote on Senator Hatch's proposal. Senator Hatch's proposal will stop taxes from going up on any American. The other one will burden nearly 1 million business owners with job-killing higher taxes. I think Americans deserve to know where their elected officials stand on these critical issues. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may address the Senate as in morning business for 20 minutes.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, ``fairness'' has become one of the watch words in this year's political debates, both at home and abroad. The term echoes throughout Europe, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure to come up with billions in bailouts for troubled eurozone countries. Her insistence on reasonable reforms is considered unfair by many in those countries, even though Germans have sacrificed to live within their means, for example, by forgoing wage increases to avoid the problems of their neighbors. In the United States, President Obama and his supporters have used fairness as a justification for various redistributionist policies, including a massive tax hike, a government takeover of health care, complex financial regulations, and new government spending programs. The President and his supporters believe the Federal Government should pursue policies that will result in economic equality. But forced equality is inherently unfair. It necessarily relies on the wrong incentives that penalize success. More fundamentally, it is based on a shallow, materialistic definition of ``fairness.'' Aristotle wrote: ``The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.'' Contrary to the goal President Obama pursues, the key determinant of lasting happiness and success is not whether you have as much money as your neighbor, regardless of the differences between you. Rather, it is what American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks calls earned success and meritocratic fairness. Much research shows people are happiest when they have the opportunity to succeed and earn their rewards. Sometimes we take risks and succeed. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we defer gratification by saving our money. Maybe our neighbor does not. Some of us are better at making money than others. Some deliberately earn less to enjoy other pursuits in life. Decisions about families result in very different economic circumstances. When the government tries to equalize everyone or take all the trouble out of life by taking care of our every need, it makes earned success and meritocratic fairness that much harder to achieve. When government aims to smooth over every rough patch, it eliminates the experiences that make us resourceful and resilient--the experiences that teach us how to work harder or smarter for our rewards. Those of us who believe in earned success and meritocratic fairness believe the best way to promote these concepts is through the free enterprise system, a system in which opportunity is sacred and excellence is rewarded. We reject the notion that it is fair to impose interventionist and redistributionist policies to guarantee material equality. As Brooks notes: ``For the overwhelming majority of Americans, fairness means rewarding merit, not spreading the wealth around.'' In his new book, ``The Road to Freedom,'' Brooks asks some fundamental questions related to the future of earned success, the pursuit of happiness, and meritocratic fairness: First, ``Will we see a growing bureaucracy or more entrepreneurship?'' Second, ``Will we be a culture of redistribution or a culture of aspiration?'' Third, ``Will we be a nation of takers or a nation of makers?'' These are serious questions that will be answered in the long run-- not in 1 day or 1 year or in one session of Congress. But for now, I would like to focus on the short term. How do recent government policies help answer these questions about what is fair? How does government spending, and the staggering debt that comes with it, affect bureaucracy and entrepreneurship? How does a redistributionist tax policy affect the aspirations of job creators and innovators? And how does our burdensome regulatory regime affect the so-called ``makers'' in American society? Let's take these Brooks' questions one at a time. First, will we see a growing bureaucracy or more entrepreneurship? We all know entrepreneurship requires opportunity and private investment. But a burdensome Federal Government reduces opportunity and it crowds out private investment. Let's take a look at the growth of government under President Obama. Since his inauguration in January of 2009, the Federal debt has increased by more than $5 trillion, and it is rapidly approaching $16 trillion in total. Meanwhile, the Federal budget deficit has exceeded $1 trillion 4 years in a row. The highest deficit before President Obama was less than half that amount. How did our deficit and debt skyrocket so quickly? Well, for starters, President Obama's economic policies have resulted in slower GDP growth, which means less tax revenue flowing to the Treasury and more Americans requiring government assistance. So government income is down. Second, the President has dramatically increased government spending. Prior to the 2008 fiscal crisis, the 40-year average for Federal outlays was less than 21 percent of our gross domestic product. But under President Obama, spending soared over 25 percent of the GDP in 2009. It has remained above 24 percent since then. This new spending has grown the Federal bureaucracy and it has increased the regulatory burden on families and businesses. For example, the President's 2,700-page health spending law created or codified at least 159 new boards, bureaucracies, and programs, along with thousands of new pages of government regulations and more than 20 new taxes. A recent Bloomberg News report notes that the President's health care law imposes $813 billion in taxes on middle-income families and job creators, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In total, it has imposed $24 billion in new regulatory costs on the private sector and States, as well as almost $59 billion in annual paperwork hours on the economy. The 2010 Dodd-Frank law is a similar story. It is still creating countless new rules and its direct compliance costs have already exceeded $7 billion. Indeed, according to the Financial Services Roundtable, Dodd-Frank will force more than 26,000 employees to comply with the law. Other Obama initiatives have failed to pass the Congress, but likewise would have expanded the bureaucracy and funneled resources from the private sector to the government. These initiatives include cap and trade, the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act, and the more recent Paycheck Fairness Act. We need to get back to basics. As Congressman Ryan has said, we need to make it easier for people to employ their ``right to rise.'' That means leaving more money in the private sector and reducing the size of the Washington bureaucracy. We can start by stopping tax hikes and bills such as ObamaCare that suck needed resources out of the economy and give unaccountable regulators immense power. Let's consider Brooks' second question. Will we be a culture of redistribution or a culture of aspiration? Public policy has a direct impact on economic aspiration and economic mobility. America has traditionally been an aspirational society with high levels of mobility. Although President Obama has made class warfare a central campaign tactic, we do not have a class system here in America. We do not have an American aristocracy or noble bloodlines. Because of our meritocratic system, people in America can and do jump from one income level to another throughout their lifetimes, from the one place to another. But with unemployment stuck above 8 percent now for 41 consecutive months, and the Obama administration's preference for redistributionist policies, there is real concern that America's culture of aspiration may gradually be replaced by a culture of redistribution. Look at the tax issue. President Obama wants to increase the top marginal income tax rates in order to expand the entitlement state and promote what he calls greater ``fairness'' in society. But what about the economic consequences of taking more money from successful people as the economy continues to struggle? The Joint Committee on Taxation has told us that allowing the top two marginal income tax rates to rise from 33 and 35 percent to 36 and 39.6 percent, respectively, will hit 53 percent of net positive income and just under 1 million business owners overall. Raising marginal tax rates is no way to encourage aspiration or job creation. It certainly imposes a wet blanket on the kind of risk taking that has helped build America. It is merely redistribution under the guise of social justice. The President's approach to investment is also hostile to aspiration and risk taking. He has endorsed raising the top capital gains rate from 15 to 23.8 percent, and he also wants to raise the top rate on dividends from 15 to 43.4 percent. The so-called ``Buffet tax'' is yet another method of hiking taxes on investment. All of these taxes on investment reduce the value of the asset by reducing the aftertax return. Our private economy runs on business investment, which is highly sensitive to tax rates, especially on capital gains and dividends. Some of those who prefer higher taxes have argued that if taxes do not go up, those in the top brackets will invest and save more, but that will not do much for job creation and economic growth. Well, that is factually incorrect. Saving does not mean throwing your money under a mattress or burying it in your backyard. Anyone who saves money either puts it into the bank, where it is lent to someone, often a business, so they can hire more people, purchase equipment or invest in stocks and bonds, or the money is directly invested in a stock or a bond, which provides capital for the same purpose. In other words, savings actually puts the money saved to work providing capital for someone to do something with it. And that creates economic growth. If that increment of income is instead taken from those who earned it and spent by the government, the effect on the economy will almost always be a net negative. If we want to encourage aspiration, innovation, and the job creation that comes with those, is it a good idea to raise the capital gains rate by almost 59 percent and nearly triple taxes on dividends, even though these profits have already been taxed once at the corporate level? The President and some Congressional Democrats think so, but I strongly disagree. Here is Brooks' third question: Will we be a Nation of takers or a Nation of makers? Many have lamented the decline of the manufacturing base in America. Although the United States is still the largest manufacturing economy in the world, there is no doubt that policies from Washington have made it more difficult for manufacturers--and those are the economy's foremost makers--to compete in global markets. The list of these policies is long. Let me explain a few. First, the corporate tax rate. At over 39 percent, our combined corporate tax rate is now the highest in the industrialized world. Other countries are cutting their corporate tax rates to encourage economic growth, but we are doing nothing on the tax front to follow their lead and attract more investment to the United States. Is it any wonder jobs are moving overseas? If not, whose fault is it, the company trying to return a profit to its investors or the government which makes it impossible to compete with foreign corporations? Look at energy. Manufacturers rely on cheap sources of energy to produce products cheaply. Yet President Obama has stood in the way of domestic production of energy such as the Keystone XL Pipeline and worked tirelessly to punitively raise taxes on the oil and gas industries. New regulations on coal-fired powerplants, emissions of greenhouse gases, and industrial boilers will also hurt our economy. Simply put, domestic makers are being hurt by the President's anti- energy and proregulatory agenda. Is this fair? Why should Americans pay more than the real economic cost of available American energy? And is it fair that a few corporations make billions because the government mandates that we buy ethanol from them, just to cite one example? Now let's turn to labor. Manufacturers are also being burdened by union-dictated rules including from the National Labor Relations Board such as the ``ambush elections rule'' and new rules on the establishment of ``micro unions'' within the workplace. With anticompetitive tax, energy, and labor policy, it will be increasingly difficult for our country to compete as a Nation of makers. These are precisely the kinds of policies that encourage employers to move jobs overseas, which hurts American workers and the greater economy. And this is required in the name of fairness? We are also trending toward being a Nation of ``taking.'' The government is the biggest taker. But a majority of Americans now take more than they contribute. In tax year 2009, 51 percent of Americans paid zero Federal income taxes, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation--over half of Americans. And these citizens take much more than their follow citizens in government benefits. Look at food stamps, for example. As my friend Senator Sessions has pointed out, ``food stamp spending has quadrupled since 2001. It has doubled just since 2008. A program that began as a benefit for 1 in 50 Americans is now received by 1 in 7.'' Spending on food stamp welfare has increased 100 percent since President Obama took office. Some 80 percent of all spending in the recently passed farm bill will go toward food stamps. In total, there are 69 means-tested Federal welfare programs costing taxpayers $940 billion every year, including both Federal programs and State contributions to those programs. The number of Americans living off the wealth of ``makers'' keeps growing and growing. There are nearly twice as many government workers today as there are in the manufacturing sector, meaning that there are more government workers than people making products and paying their salaries. Is that fair? As economist Stephen Moore noted, ``This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960 when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing, and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.'' The growth of taxpayer-funded dependency is directly connected with the growth in the economy. The more we make as a Nation, the more wealth we generate and the less people who rely on welfare to survive. To get there we need aggressive progrowth policies in place to encourage free enterprise and discourage a Nation of taking. It is neither fair to the makers nor those who must rely on the government for the President to impose policies that reduce economic growth, reduce job creation, reduce savings and investment, and reduce opportunity and freedom. In conclusion, free enterprise and meritocratic policies are consistent with our founding principles. As Thomas Jefferson declared in his first inaugural address, ``A wise and frugal government . . . shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.'' Will America remain the country our Founders envisioned or will we become a country where fairness means equal outcomes for all dictated by the government? Will we make it easier or harder for people to earn their success? And will the American people be happier if allowed to pursue their dreams, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, or if the government tries to force equal economic outcomes? Which is more moral, which is more fair, which is more American?

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I also refer people to an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal, ``A Triumph and Tragedy for the Law,'' by David Rivkin, Jr., and Lee Casey, both fine lawyers who frequently opine on matters of this sort.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, regarding yesterday's Supreme Court decision, there have been a variety of very interesting editorials, op-ed pieces, and blogs--many of them erudite and very useful for the analysis of the Court's opinion. Of course, it will take a long time for us to know precisely how all of this will work out over time. I thought I might refer to a couple of these opinions and op-eds and put them in the Record for people to see what a sampling might look like so they can more thoroughly analyze the opinion and then pose a question at the end. I start with one of my friends, and I think one of the best columnists, even nationally, that I know. He writes for my local paper, the Arizona Republic. His name is Bob Robb, and he writes in his column on June 29: Roberts' decision controlled the outcome, even though it was fully joined by no other justice. Here's what he concluded: The federal government has no power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause to require individuals to purchase health insurance, as Obamacare does. However, the federal government does have the power to impose a financial penalty on people for not complying with the mandate the federal government has no authority to impose. That's because the penalty is actually a tax under Congress' constitutional taxing authority. However, the penalty is not a tax for purposes of the Anti- Injunction Act, which would preclude the court from considering the legality until someone actually pays it. Obviously, Mr. President, these dilemmas require some explanation. It may be--and this is my phrasing, not Bob Robb's--this is a good example of where the phrase of ``legal legerdemain'' comes into play. Robb continues: If Congress has no authority to require people to do something, such as purchase health insurance, how can it penalize them for not doing it? And how can money owed exclusively because of failing to comply with an unconstitutional mandate be regarded as a tax and not a penalty? He goes on to say: The purpose of the constitutional taxing power is to raise the money to operate the government. The clause reads: ``Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes . . . to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.'' The purpose of the penalty for not buying health insurance, however, isn't to raise revenue. The government would prefer not to get any money from it at all. The purpose is to compel compliance with the mandate that Roberts says the government has no power to impose. There is nothing in the Constitution that can remotely be construed as giving Congress the power to tax people, not to raise revenue but to punish them for failing to do what Congress would like them to do. And Robb concludes: If Congress cannot do something directly, it shouldn't be able to do it indirectly through taxation. Mr. President, this raises a very important question. If the taxing power can be used to institute mandates such as ObamaCare, the real question is, What limits are there on such taxing power? I believe this may be one of the most important unanswered questions in Justice Roberts' opinion. One attempt to square the circle, in effect, was by a writer named Joshua Hawley in the Daily Caller in his column entitled ``What's behind Roberts' surprising decision?'' I note that Hawley comes to this with some credentials, being described as a former law clerk to Chief Justice Roberts as well as an associate law professor at the University of Missouri. In effect, as I read Hawley's piece, he said Justice Roberts actually constrained Congress's power dramatically by, first of all, drawing a clear line on the reasonable and proper extension of the commerce clause power. But he also said the taxing authority Roberts uses to justify Congress's action in ObamaCare is actually very limited. In fact, he says that Roberts attempted to make this case sui generis--that is the Latin phrase for ``one of a kind''--and that only in this particular case would the taxing authority be permissibly used for Congress to require the people to do something. I hope Hawley's analysis is correct. I am not so sure it is. Roberts' opinion certainly will make it more politically difficult for Congress to pass things that extend its authority because it will have to be clothed in the cloak of a tax, and Congress doesn't generally like to pass new taxes on people. But Congress and the lawyers who advise us are pretty clever about phrasing legislation in such a way that it would meet constitutional challenges. Now that we have a new example of a power that we might exercise-- namely, this expanded taxing power--I suspect we will see efforts in the future to clothe our legislation under the guise of that taxing power. If so, the constraints in Chief Justice Roberts' opinion would be no constraints at all. There is an old saying that hard cases make bad law. I don't know that this was all that hard of a case, but it clearly resulted in a lot of different points of view from the Justices, from which one could conclude that at least they saw it as a hard case. I just hope the end result is not bad law, as I have suggested it could be here today. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks the following pieces: first, the Robert Robb column dated June 29 from the Arizona Republic; second, the Wall Street Journal editorial of June 28, ``ObamaCare and the Power to Tax''; a Rich Lowry piece in National Review Online dated June 29, ``The Umpire Blinks''; a National View Online piece by The Editors dated June 28, ``Chief Justice Roberts's Folly''; and the Joshua Hawley piece dated June 28 from the Daily Caller.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, might I ask my colleague to yield, if I could add one other question to his very important question for my colleague from South Carolina. I have a recollection that during one of the hearings the Senator from South Carolina specifically asked the Secretary of Defense what the consequence would be, and I recall he had a very dramatic response. I wonder if the Senator might share that with us as well.

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I didn't hear all the remarks of my colleague from Kansas, but I think what I have to say will follow on directly. I saw a prominent news magazine, the cover of which had a likeness of President Obama, and the title was ``The Imperial Presidency'' or ``The Imperial President,'' and the theme of it was this President seems to believe that by Executive order or Executive action he can simply do what he wants to do irrespective of whether the Congress has passed a law authorizing it or has in some other way directed the President to carry out a particular policy. When the President takes his oath of office to see that the laws of the country are faithfully executed, that is a requirement of his job. Our three-branch government has the legislative branch and the President jointly deciding what the law is to be, when Congress passes the law and the President signs it into law. It then has the President required to execute those laws. Now, he doesn't do it personally, of course. He does it with the Department of Justice. If it is something related to our national parks, then it would be the Department of the Interior, and so on. But the Department of Justice has a big role to play in this, as does the Department of Homeland Security in respect to immigration laws because the Department of Homeland Security has now taken over all of the immigration functions, and that relates to customs, to issuing visas and, of course, enforcing the laws against illegal immigration as well. So it is not up to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security or the Attorney General or the President to decide whether to enforce a law of the country. That is their responsibility. Then the Supreme Court resolves differences about the meanings of the statutes, their application, and whether they are constitutional. Earlier this week--yesterday--the Supreme Court determined the constitutionality of a law the State of Arizona had passed to deal with the problem of illegal immigration in my State of Arizona. It is a serious problem there. About half of all the people who cross the border do so in the Tucson sector, and the results of that on Arizona have been devastating over the years: the damage to the environment, creating forest fires; the problem of the people who try to cross the border in the summer and end up dying in the desert because of its very harsh environment; the people who are brought across the border by unscrupulous coyotes, they are called--the smugglers--who then badly mistreat them, hold them hostage from their families, perhaps in Mexico or Central America and brutally mistreat them in many cases; the problems of crime that law enforcement has to deal with, the hospitalization and medical treatment they are required to receive under the law. All of these things have had a dramatic negative impact on my State. As a result, the State legislature said: To the extent the Federal Government is not enforcing the law in our State, we will try to help fill that gap in cooperation and coordination with the Federal Government. So they passed S.B. 1070. A key feature of that, which was the cooperation between law enforcement, was upheld by the Supreme Court. But what has been the Obama administration's reaction to that? The Obama administration has reacted by saying: Well, we don't like your ruling and, therefore, we are simply not going to cooperate with the State of Arizona as we have been in the past or any other State that has laws like Arizona, even if you, the Supreme Court, say it is constitutional. The petulance and the arrogance of this are something the American people have to judge, but from a law enforcement perspective, to me, this suggests the administration is creating some very serious problems. It was one thing for the administration to say, as they did last week, as to the 800,000 or 900,000 students primarily who came here because their parents brought them here illegally, we are going to find a way, in effect, to suspend their deportation so they can go to school or work here; we are just not going to apply the law to them. But it is quite another for it to say: By the way, we are going to treat all the other illegal immigrants here the same way--the 10 million to 12 million people who have been in the United States for a while, those who crossed the border some time ago. In effect, that is what the administration has said. Even if local law enforcement, such as the Phoenix Police Department, has the right to stop someone they see weaving down the road in the manner of a drunk driver, and they stop that individual and determine they are driving while intoxicated and then ask to see their driver's license; and if the individual cannot produce an Arizona driver's license--which is already a violation of Arizona law today--but if, for example, the individual says: Here is my Matricula card from the Mexican Embassy, that may be reason for the officer to believe that individual is not here legally. So in addition to driving while intoxicated and not having a valid Arizona driver's license, the police officer, who now has reason to believe that individual may not be an American citizen, ordinarily then would take that individual's name, call it in to a Federal database--I think it is up in Vermont or New Hampshire--and there is verification that either the individual is or is not in the United States legally. If the person is not here legally and hasn't been convicted or accused of a major crime, they are turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, which is the part of Homeland Security that is supposed to take these illegal immigrants and decide what to do with them. In most cases, they are simply removed from the United States or deported. But now the administration is saying we are not going to do that anymore. We don't even want to know whether the individual is an illegal immigrant. We are not going to check, and we are not going to allow you access to the database to check. Up to now, the Phoenix Police Department or the Maricopa County or Cochise County Sheriff could call up the database and say: We have the name of an individual; is this person legal. The administration is now saying it is not even going to allow Arizona to check. So, Mr. President, this is a condition which cannot be allowed to stand. Where the administration is not enforcing the laws, the Congress is going to have to take what action we need to take to ensure the President enforces the laws, as he is sworn to do.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).